Reshaping The Hollowed-out Countryside (english)/Castilla La MaRcha. Un Resort para La España Motivada (spanish.)

During decades, special emphasis was placed on the promotion of sun and beach tourism leading to the construction of numerous hotels and apartments. The overcrowding of the Spanish coasts prompted a significant deterioration with leisure led urban planning, paralysed due to the economic crisis suffered around 2008. The media spotlight has focused mainly on these abandoned residential constructions. However, the real-estate corpses that lie inland, located mainly on the outskirts of urban centres, acquire a greater relevance as they clash with the so-called 'Hollowed-out Spain'. This exclusion directly interferes with the forgotten rural areas, neglecting the countryside, which quickly turns into wasteland.

It is actually funny seeing the contradiction between the oblivion of the resorts and the need for that same leisure to save the forgotten Spanish villages bearing in mind that this rural dilemma has taken a turn in the aftermath of the COVID-19 since more people seek a vacation in contact with nature far from the hustle and bustle of cities.

In the midst of all these concrete ruins we find Peralvillo, a small village near Ciudad Real that is used as an experiment to pose the following question: Would both the mistreated pastures and the leisure complex archetype be capable of joining forces to provide a solution to the 'Hollowed-out Spain'?

The strategy followed is to frame the pre-existing site through a perimeter and thus enhance its fertility. This idea is based on DOGMA's A Simple Heart project and its direct predecessor The Potteries Thinkbelt by Cedric Price, proposing a similar social condenser but replacing the educational with the recreational. Therefore, an inhabited wall is built around the village, defining a new boundary that treats the existing in the interior as a redoubt of the rural environment to be preserved.

 The project is actually a pretext to assess this contradictory situation that has spread throughout our country: Why do we continue building these resorts all over the Spanish territory when we can work with the rural environment that sees leisure both necessary and distant?